


Deep Dark

by omgbubblesomg



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Cuddles, Dean Whump, Drugged Dean, Drugged come, Eventual Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied previous rape in hell, Knifeplay, M/M, Massage, Non-Consensual Blow Jobs, Other, Psychological Torture, Rape Aftermath, Sam and Cas to the rescue, Terrible torture methods, Torture, Violence, Whump, Wound Fucking, torture aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-05 08:29:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12790692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omgbubblesomg/pseuds/omgbubblesomg
Summary: A monster tries to torture Dean, but Dean doesn’t break easy. That is, until the monster realizes that the best way to get to Dean is to hurt the people he loves.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MIND THE TAGS!
> 
> This fic has eventual comfort from Sam and Cas and they end up sharing a bed, but there’s no sexual content between any of TFW. I originally wrote it for Kinktober Day… 17?? For the blood/gore and massage fill. Here we are a mere month later because #life. 
> 
> Many thanks to gertiecraign for betaing and also for being the darkest Kermit to ever Kermit. Me: okay so it rapes Dean. Gertie: yeah but what if its come is also drugged.  
> God _dammit_

The monster is some kind of superhuman (with an emphasis on the super) and has no trouble at all getting Dean into the sewers, even though he’s giving it everything; kicking, clawing and biting at its implacable hands. It acts like he’s a particularly annoying bag of groceries, slinging him over its shoulder as he tries unsuccessfully to find a weak spot somewhere on its clammy grey body.

“Ssstupid hunter,” it hisses, and makes an inhuman clicking sound with its tongue that makes Dean think of deep pits with pointy things at the bottom.

It trots him down a dank hallway, where slime clings mouldily to the dripping rocks. He tries not to imagine the kind of weird ass disease he’s about to get just from breathing the same air as some of the stains he sees on the floor. He distracts himself from the rank sewer stench by making a mental map of the place, archiving each turn they take, though he isn’t assisted by the jolting motion of the _thing_ as it carries him further, making his brain rattle in his skull with every step.

Their destination is at the end of a particularly damp hallway; a room with nothing but a skeevy metal table and—Dean gulps—a rusty and well-used drain beneath it. He kicks out again but he (stupidly) tired himself out by struggling earlier and it’s almost too easy for the thing to restrain him. It gets him stretched out, a limb at all four corners of the table, with rope to hold him in place and nothing in sight to use to cut himself free.

 _This is fine,_ he tells himself. _I’ve been through worse. At least Sammy and Cas are safe._ He’d gotten the warning to them just in time, right after he’d emptied his gun into the monster’s partner, and with any luck they were already long gone.

The thing draws a switchblade from its back pocket, opening it with a _schnick_ and holding it with a level of well-practiced comfort that does nothing for Dean’s heart rate. It makes that weird clicking sound again.

_This is fine. I’ve been to hell. It can’t be worse than that._

The thing snicks through his shirt and trousers _(fine)_ and his underwear _(also fine)_ and tugs the ruined tatters out from under him. Which is absolutely fine. He can deal with being naked and spreadeagled on a freezing table in an abandoned sewer. Sure. No problem.

His forehead beads with sweat despite his inner assurances. The thing is going to hurt him and he’s going to be powerless to stop it.

“I want to hear you ssscream, hunter,” it hisses at him.

He expects slow building pain, and mind games, like Alistair taught him. He expects shouts and threats. He expects the monster to take its time to learn his weak spots. But when the pain finally starts he’s surprised at the level of bloodshed. He hadn’t expected _that_ kind of violence. The quick-to-bleed-to-death kind. As it stabs the switchblade into his abdomen the first thing he feels—even before the pain—is shock. The monster is not fucking around. Dean had killed its mate and it’s going to bleed him for it.

He can feel that none of his organs have been hit, since the acid-stench of burst intestines has yet to fill the room. He tries not to think about how that’s the kind of knowledge he’s accumulated from years of first-hand experience. He forces himself to lie still. He’s bled out enough times to know that struggling will only hasten things. But it’s not easy to stay motionless when the thing holds the blade up to his eye and lets his own blood drip off the tip, blinding him.

“Sssscream,” it tells him again, and Dean holds off on that, too. As much as he can. Just to piss it off. At this rate he’s going to be dead within the week, so annoying his captor isn’t going to result in extra pain. Not like in hell.

It slashes the blade across his thigh and he arches as much as the ropes allow. He does scream—he can’t stop it—but he cuts it off as soon as he can, and the thing clicks at him furiously. It wants his agony. But, Dean realises, it doesn’t know what it’s doing. A lifetime of killing things quickly has not taught it how to stretch pain out. It’s not a torturer.

_Don’t quit your day job._

There’s blood in his mouth and when he laughs at it he coughs some up over his lips, choking. The thing howls at him and Dean thinks it’s the end. It’s going to stab him in the heart and it’ll probably be the quickest death he’s ever experienced. He laughs again. _See ya Sammy. Take care of Cas for me._

But the thing doesn’t kill him. It stalks out of the room and Dean is left with nothing but a gruesome dripping sound that he futilely tells himself is coming from the walls, not his own blood leaking to the floor.

When it comes back it’s obviously calmer, and it’s smiling at him. Its eyes are blacker, its skin greyer, its teeth even pointier than before.

“Your friendssss have jussst arrived,” it hisses, and Dean’s blood—what’s left of it—runs cold.

“You’re lying,” he says, all bravado.

The thing just smiles again, and holds up an angel blade. There suddenly isn’t any air left. _That’s Cas’s_. The thing has Cas’s angel blade. He half strangles a sound that comes up bloody and horrified, but he crushes it before it can turn into a shout. It can’t be true. The thing is bluffing. It can’t have Cas. Or Sam. “Fuck you,” he mutters, turning away.

It turns him back with a finger on his chin, and ignores his disbelief. “The tall one fell firssst,” it tells him, slithering closer, somehow less human than ever. Its smile is so cold Dean can feel it freeze his insides. “Its bones snapped so easy.”

Dean can see it, too. Sam on the ground, holding a ruined arm or a leg. “No,” he manages. _Not Sam. It’s not true._ He grits his teeth and turns away again, and forces the image of Sam out of his head. Sam is fine. So is Cas. They had both made it out. He had warned them in time, he’s sure of it. The thing is lying. It has to be a lie. “You’ll have to do better than that,” he tells it. “I’m not fooled that easy.”

“I held a knife to itsss throat and your sssslimy angel sssubmitted.”

Dean feels cold terror creep into his limbs, but he keeps his lips tight. It can’t be true. He had told them to run. He strains at the ropes and his wounds bleed afresh. “You’re lying!” he says again.

“How will I welcome them?” It crawls onto the table and hovers over him like some terrible parody of a lover. “I have them tied up, too. Shall I do the sssame thing to them?” It digs a frozen finger into the wound in his belly, and Dean can _feel_ it moving inside him. He gags and bile burns his nose. “Shall I put my knife in the ssssame place?” it whispers. “You can share your deathsss.” The finger burrows deeper and Dean is suddenly woozy with something more than pain. It might be the blood-loss, or the finger still digging into him, but all his physical concerns start to pale in the face of what he unexpectedly feels as a bone-deep certainty. This thing has Cas. And Sam. It’s telling the truth.

He wills himself to feel the same surety that he had a minute ago. He had been so convinced that Sam and Cas were safe. But the thing digs its finger even deeper and his doubts trickle away. It has Cas’s angel blade.

His chest tightens. It’s always been instinct to protect Sam, and that same instinct has him tensing, panting, preparing to fight, even here, even now. He can feel himself turning to that one final requirement. _Don’t let this thing hurt Sam._

He tries to swear at it, but the finger worms deeper into his stomach and his vision tunnels down. He can’t fight back. It’s got its finger inside him and it’s going to do the same thing to Sam. It’s going to hurt him.

He cracks.

“Don’t,” he begs. So quiet. Can’t get his voice to form anything else. Just, “No. No.”

“I can’t hear you,” the thing says, cold and slow and almost too quiet to be real.

He forces himself to speak louder. “Don’t! Please!”

“I don’t think you even mean that,” it drawls, and it flicks the switchblade open, closed, open. “Maybe their sssscreams will tempt you.” It slides its finger out and stalks towards the door again, and this time Dean doesn’t want it to go.

“Wait! Stop! Don’t hurt them!” It freezes in the door, still flicking the switchblade open and shut, and Dean yanks at the ropes, trying desperately to think of a way out. Some way to get himself free so he could find his family. He needed time. “Don’t go,” he begs. “Please.”

It turns back to him, shadowed by the doorframe so it looks even less real, more nightmarish. “I’ll leave the knife in itssss belly,” it promises.

“Please don’t,” Dean begs. “Let them go. We’ll leave the town and never come back. You can have the people. As many as you want. We’ll never get in your way again. Just please. Don’t hurt them.”

It stalks forward, leaning over him to ghost its lips over his face, getting an ear to his mouth to listen to him begging. He had withheld his screams before, but he doesn’t keep this from the monster. He begs with everything he has left. _Not Sam. Not Sam._

“You don’t want me to hurt it?” Its voice drips like acid. That clicking sound comes again. It’s enjoying itself.

“ _Please,_ ” he chokes. “ _I’ll do anything._ ”

“Prove it.” It gets on the table and crawls further up his body until its knees are bracketing his cheeks, and Dean knew it had been enjoying itself but he hadn’t realised it had been enjoying itself _that_ way, getting hard with its finger in a knife wound and Dean’s voice begging in its ear. It shuffles closer and even though he can see it coming he’s still not prepared for it to pull itself free from its stained trousers and press against his blood-stained lips. It’s _cold._ “Pleasssse me,” it hisses. Its smile is stretched far too wide and Dean doesn’t let himself turn away as it slips into his unresisting mouth.

It’s instantly too much. Tastes like rotting meat and he’s got bile in his nose already, choking, dying, willing himself not to bite down. _Don’t let it hurt Sam._ He’s gotta please it. He forces his unresponsive lips into an approximation of an O, even when his whole body resists, trying to get away from the cold clammy skin as it hardens even further in his mouth. _Don’t fight. Don’t let it hurt Sam._ It’s got its cock _in him_ but he’s not going to back off from this. It tastes like death and he can’t… he has to… If he doesn’t keep going it’s going to hurt Sam.

He squeezes his eyes shut and wills himself somewhere else, but the press of his tongue against it sends shudders down the backs of his arms and his mind won’t let him escape. He wants nothing more than to get away but instead he licks at it and hollows his cheeks, sucking harder. Please let it be enough. The thing pushes further in and the flavour fills his whole mouth, almost burning, as though every single tastebud finds it repellent. It _is_ repellent. Somehow still cold even with his mouth around it. He pictures Sam with the blade in his stomach and forces himself to keep going.

When it comes, he almost chokes. The thick liquid is the consistency of honey and it doesn’t go down right, but also refuses to come all the way up, clogging his throat and laying tacky across the inside of his cheeks, where it continues to fill his senses with clammy awfulness. He hates it. _Hates it._ But he’ll do it again in a heartbeat. _Was it enough?_

The thing pulls out to smear a final stain across his lips, using its cold grey cock to press it into the skin beneath his nose where he won’t be able to wipe it away. He’s instantly nauseous, probably the blood loss, but his mind feels sluggish as he chokes on the come, some of it going down to pool, thick and cold, in his belly and the back of his throat.

“Puh—” Dean coughs. Tries again. “Pluh—” _Please. Let it be enough._

Finally it stands up. It’s got the switchblade still and it’s smiling at him, twirling the blade tenderly, as if considering. Dean can’t even see the rest of the room. He’s tunnelled down to just its face. Just its fingers around the knife.

“I d-did what you said,” he stammers, teeth chattering from cold and shock.

It hums and looks at him sideways, eyes glinting. “You did,” it concedes, and then gets close again. “But, I think… not good enough. The tall one will ssssuffer.” It mimes a stabbing motion, down to the exact spot where Dean is already wounded, and Dean can’t… he can’t let it.

“Wait! Let me… let me try again!” _Please. Not Sam._

But it smiles at him and stalks out. Dean screams after it. “No, stop! Let me try again! Not Sam! Don’t! H-hurt me instead! Put it in me instead! I can take it. Please! Not Sam. _Not Sam!_ ” His throat tears—he can feel it happening—and he still can’t stop. “Sam! Don’t you dare— _Don’t you touch him!_ ”

He doesn’t know how long it takes. Time isn’t going forward any more. Sam’s somewhere down here, strapped to a table, and that _thing_ is… is going… it’s going to hurt him. He’s begging with the walls. Begging with the echoes of himself. Please. Please no. Not Sam. This can’t be happening.

When the thing comes back it’s got blood on its hands and shirt and Dean retches. It’s Sam’s blood. It’s got Sam’s blood on it.

It clambers back onto the table and pulls the angel blade out. “That wasss fun.” It lays across him and Dean bucks, his whole body automatically revolting as Sam’s dried blood is pressed into his own wounds. That’s his baby brother. That’s _Sammy._ It had hurt Sammy. He tries to speak but he’s gagging, retching. The taste of something alien and foul. His mouth won’t cooperate around the knowledge that Sam is somewhere down here, bleeding.

“Angel nexsst, hunter?

Oh god. Oh god no.

“Maybe I’ll take itsss eyesss?” It touches Dean’s face. Soft as a lover’s caress, over his cheekbones and up to the bridge of his nose. “What do you think?” it asks, and suddenly it isn’t soft anymore. It digs its thumbs over Dean’s own eyes, pressing down until he screams again, lights flashing like suns beneath his eyelids before the thing pulls away, leaving fresh tears behind. “But then,” it muses, “how will it ssssee what elssse I do to it?” Its fingers trip up to where Dean’s wrists are stretched above him, tickling his palm. He can’t see it. He’s only got the afterimage of thumbprints across his vision. “Perhapssss,” it says, “I will take itss handsss?” It clicks deep in its throat, and Dean can’t help the tears that continue unabated. He thinks of the handprint that Cas left on his shoulder.

His voice is ragged and he can only mouth. Begging. Begging. It’s hurting the people he loves. He can’t stop it. Please. Please no. He could have dealt with torture—he’s spent half his life in hell, after all—but not this. Not this. God, please. Not Sam’s blood and Cas’s hands. Not his family.

His voice doesn’t work anymore, and when he tries to scream only a thin whistle makes it out of his torn throat. It’s not nearly enough. He’ll do anything. Suck it down again. Whatever it takes. But it only shoves two fingers into his mouth, getting blood in there to mix with the thick ejaculate from before. Dean grows weak with nausea again, and then it leaves, taking the angel blade with it.

He’s screaming at the walls, but the sound doesn’t come out. And he can’t even force himself to wonder about the damage he must have done to his throat. Wants it to end. Wants it to end.

He isn’t allowed a respite.

The thing comes back to tell him what it’s going to do next, who it’s going to hurt. It shoves fingers into his mouth or the wound in his belly, leaving him weak and shaking and desperate, and then it leaves again. Long enough that the time stretches out into years, though he knows that can’t be true. He knows he should be dead. He’ll bleed out in a few hours, maybe a day, maybe two, but then Sam and Cas will be left with the monster and that’s worse, somehow. That’s so much worse. The thing will keep hurting them. It’s agony. The worst kind of pain. He can’t even hear them screaming, they must be too far away, or else their throats are ruined, too. When the thing leaves him he begs for it to come back, wants it to use the blade on him, instead. Anything to stop it hurting the only people he has left.

It climbs on top of him and whispers straight into his ears. Everything it’s doing. Everything it’s done. Making that clicking noise and taking a breath and starting again. Telling him the sounds Sam makes. The way Cas has stopped fighting. The taste of their blood. The precise _snap_ of each of Sam’s fingers. It’s too much. He can’t take it. Can’t turn away. Can’t make it stop. Can’t even cover his ears. The thing stretches out on top of him and pours it all into his mind, all the ways it’s hurting them. All the ways it’s making them bleed. It gets its legs between his and makes sure he can feel how much it’s enjoying their pain. How hard it’s getting.

When it shoves its cock into him it’s almost a relief. A familiar pain that he remembers from hell. Something he can deal with. He begs it with his body. Tries to show it how good he can be. Tries to make it stay with him instead of returning to his brother or his angel.

It doesn’t work, and when it comes again (like acid in his bowels) it doesn’t stay. It pulls out, using its fingers to push back whatever blood-semen mix comes out after, and then it’s gone. Taking the blade to inflict more damage on the people he loves.

Later, he feels it straddling his thighs to shove into the wound on his stomach, and he vomits, not daring to look at what comes up. The thing presses the acid mixture back into his mouth, holding it there as it fucks into his torn open body.

He wants nothing more than to succumb to his own wounds, but he can’t. Not yet. Some part of his conscious—the part that’s always belonged to his family—won’t let him. He can barely think past the knowledge that Sam’s nearby, hurting, and Cas as well, but he clings to life for no other reason than they’re still alive, too. _I won’t go,_ he tells them in his mind. _Not without you._

When the end comes, it’s brighter than he expected. Blue light. He had anticipated that the creeping darkness at the edge of his vision would swallow him whole, but it’s not like that at all. It blinds him. He can’t turn away from it. Can’t move. It’s come for him.

Inexplicably, it’s Cas’s voice that welcomes him into death. “Dean? Can you hear me?”

Sam is there too. “Cas, his stomach. Can you heal him?”

They’ve come back for him. They’ve come to take him into the empty. The tears feel far too hot on his cheeks as he’s lifted up. His body clings uselessly to life and he tells it to let go. It’s okay. Cas and Sam are waiting for him on the other side. It’s okay.

“Dean, stop fighting me.”

He’s not fighting. That’s the whole point. He’s letting go.

“Sam, he won’t let me heal him.”

“Dean, come on, now. Come on, big brother. Open your eyes.” Something pries at his eyelids and there’s that big familiar face. “Stay with me, okay?”

He automatically looks to Sam’s stomach, to the place he expects to see a switchblade buried deep, but there’s a shirt in the way. He paws at it. When did his hands get free? “S. Ah. Em.” Can’t get his mouth to form the whole word all at once. “S. Am.”

“Yeah, Dean, it’s me.” Worried eyes. Scrunched up nose. Dean can’t focus on more than one thing at once. Floppy hair. Where’s the knife? Is it still in his stomach? Shirt in the way. “Stay here, Dean, come on. Stay with me. Stop fighting Cas. He’s trying to heal you.”

He groans, and for some reason the darkness is further away now. Isn’t he supposed to be dying? This hurts too much to be dying.

“Keep talking to him.”

That’s Cas… That’s Cas’s voice! Dean swings his head round, slow as syrup, and there he is. Trench coat. Stupid tie. The whole thing. And his sleeves are rolled up as he presses a hand to Dean’s stomach.

His hand! Whole and unharmed!

Dean is, quite suddenly, awake, and he feels grace hit him as though it had been dammed up against his spine. “Cas!” His whole body seizes, slamming into life with the force of a charging bull. Cas’s grace is everywhere, instantly, and he bucks up into it, away from it. He’s on fire. Sam’s holding him down, an arm across his chest, and Cas, bewildered Cas, is trying to backtrack, drawing the grace back out. The last thing he feels is Sam’s body pressed up against him, no knife wounds at all, and Cas’s hands on his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/122619.html?thread=43628539#t43628539) requested in _May_ because I am nothing if not disorganised. The OP also turns out to be the anonymous prompter for a few of my other favourite fics so if they feel like coming out of the woodwork to say hey then I think we can be BEST FRIENDS.  
>  If anyone else wants to talk about Dean whump or just whump in general, you can find me on tumblr here: [omgbubblesomg](https://omgbubblesomg.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Next chapter is aftermath and cuddles :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i told myself i would get rid of all my WIPs before christmas but it's five days out and it ain't happening. Have some massages and cuddles instead. idek what this is.

“What’s wrong with him, Cas?”

“The prolonged sleep appears to be a coping mechanism for severe trauma.”

“Will he be okay?”

“I do not pretend to know everything about the human condition. Physically, he is already okay. Completely healed.”

They’re in the bunker, where they’ve been holed up for going on eighteen hours now. And Dean is _still asleep._

“Something’s wrong.”

Cas doesn’t try to deny it. For a moment Sam sees it again. Dean looking more like a corpse than a human, and that… _thing_ laying on top of him, all sharp teeth and hissing tongue. No clothes on either of them.

Cas had already warned him about the nature of some of Dean’s injuries. And Sam can’t… he can’t. Something had hurt Dean. _Intimately._ While he had been safe with an angel. They shouldn’t have waited, but Cas had lost his angel blade and they had made the stupid _stupid_ decision to retrace their steps to get another weapon, losing the monster’s trail for far too long when they came back to search the sewers.

Sam squeezes his eyes shut and jabs a nail into his palm, trying to keep himself _present._ Trying not to see that almost-human shape as it moulded itself over his brother’s body, using Dean as a shield before Cas could throw it off.

Dean’s skin darkened by dirt and blood and something more.

Dean’s unseeing eyes.

He jabs his palm harder.

Dean is alive. He’s _alive._ Sure, he’s going to take a while to heal and he might be sleeping for way longer than normal but _he’s alive._

Sam paces the length of the kitchen again, and Cas watches him. Neither of them can focus on anything else right now. They’re just… waiting. Waiting for Dean to be okay.

Suddenly, Cas lifts his head, looking in the direction of the hallway. There must be a noise at the other end of the bunker. Something Sam can’t hear.

“He’s awake,” Cas says, and Sam slumps against the bench, unfathomably tired, just from the confirmation that his brother is, indeed, still moving.

“Is he—” he begins, but Cas cuts him off, standing abruptly with a frown on his face.

“Something’s wrong,” he says, an echo of Sam’s own earlier statement, and Sam doesn’t need the clarification because he can hear it too. Running feet. The sound of a body careening into walls as it sprints towards them.

“Dean!” he calls, coming round from behind the counter and already heading for the hallway.

The answering shout is broken. “Sam! Cas!”

And then Dean hurtles into the room, barefoot. Sam only has a glimpse of wild eyes before Dean just _slams_ into him, taking him to the floor in a mess of bruised limbs. Sam doesn’t have a chance to get his breath back because Dean is clawing at him, fingers in his shirt, ripping through the seams. Sam doesn’t know what he wants, can’t figure out how to help. Instinct is telling him to fight back but it’s Dean, it’s his brother, and suddenly Dean’s got hands on his stomach, splayed out like he can’t believe Sam’s really there. Gasping with it. Can’t get enough air. Petting him, pawing at him, digging fingers into him as though trying to bunch him up closer. Sam can only hold him through it. “It’s me,” he hears himself say. “Dean, it’s okay, I’m here.”

“You,” Dean is mumbling, gasping, hardly even making sense. Can’t complete a sentence before he’s already starting the next one. “You,” he moans. “The knife. Your. I couldn’t. Your stomach. Couldn’t stop it.”

Cas comes closer and Dean rounds on him, too. Yanks at his hands until Cas is forced to join them on the floor. Dean won’t get off Sam. He’s straddling Sam’s waist, one hand still on his stomach while the other one clings to Cas’s sleeve, seemingly caught between covering Sam’s body and memorising every individual finger on Cas’s hand.

“It’s okay,” Sam soothes, “we’re both okay.”

“It was hurting you,” Dean keens. “I couldn’t stop it.”

Sam looks at Cas, bewildered. “It never hurt us, Dean. We killed it as soon as we arrived.”

Dean leans over, drawing Cas down further, getting them both as close to him as possible. He seems incapable of pulling himself away. He’s touching, touching. A handful of Sam’s hair. Cas’s tie. Drawing them in. Shaking. It’s almost like the moment Cas had healed him, when his whole body had gone rigid with grace before spasming uncontrollably. He can’t seem to stop himself.

“ _It was hurting you,_ ” he cries again, and Sam’s heart breaks. He holds Dean through the following sobs, whispering nothing important. Dean was gone for less than a week but what kind of damage had the monster done in that time?

“It was manipulating you,” he whispers. “You can’t believe that we were down there, Dean, Dean. Maybe it… maybe it drugged you if it… when it touched you.” Unbidden, the memory of Cas healing Dean rises back to the surface. Grace forcing Dean’s unconscious body to cough up something thick and grey that Sam had refused to think about. More of it leaking from other places. Sam wraps his arms tighter and buries his face in the crook of Dean’s neck.

Eventually the wracking sobs subside, and Cas gets his hands beneath Dean, lifting him gently into a bridal carry that Sam can’t bring himself to mock, even jokingly. He trails Cas back down the hall, and holds Dean’s bedroom door open so Cas can ease Dean through. The blanket is on the floor, presumably where Dean kicked it off on his dash to the kitchen. Sam picks it up as Cas lays Dean out, but when he gets close Dean’s hands shoot out to grab at them both.

“Don’t leave,” he whispers, so quiet that Sam couldn’t have heard right, but he doesn’t ask for clarification. He shares a look with Cas and of course neither of them are going to deny Dean. Not this. Not now.

“Of course,” he whispers back, and lets Dean draw him onto the mattress face to face, with Cas on the other side. He doesn’t resist when Dean arranges them how he wants, getting them both as close as he can. Sam’s chest is still bare where it’s pressed against Dean’s, and Cas lets his arms be drawn around them both, where Dean can see them. He can reach all the way to Sam’s shoulders and pulls them flush, so Dean is trapped between them.

Nobody talks. It’s way too early to sleep and even if he was tired the hummingbird sprint of Dean’s heartbeat would be enough to keep him awake. His chin is in line with Dean’s forehead and he puts his lips there. A kiss that doesn’t mean anything except love, and in that way it means _everything._

Dean trembles, and begins to talk.

“It had you,” he whispers. “It caught you both.”

“It was lying,” Cas replies. His lips are right against Dean’s ear. “We’re both fine.”

Dean squeezes his eyes shut. “It was hurting you,” he says, and Sam knows that all the assurances in the world won’t make a difference. “It stabbed—” he has to stop there and Sam doesn’t want to hear it but he has to. He won’t let Dean carry this memory alone. When Dean speaks it’s too quiet. A breath of air as he explains how the _thing_ broke him down. What it told him.

When he’s done Sam takes Dean’s hands and presses them into the warmth of his stomach. Dean whimpers and his fingers spread automatically, documenting the area where the knife never buried itself. Cas shifts and Dean makes to grab him back, but Cas isn’t going far. Just leaning back to touch the place where his handprint used to be. Dean’s breath stutters in a moan, his eyes slipping shut, and Cas squeezes gently. He wriggles until both hands are free and Sam watches from over Dean’s shoulder as Cas rubs down his back and then back up. So slow. Each of his fingers trailing lines across Dean’s skin.

“It didn’t hurt us,” Cas whispers. “You are the only one it hurt and you survived that, too. Your strength never ceases to amaze, Dean Winchester.”

Dean makes an expression like he knows Cas is lying, and Sam wants to kiss it right off his stupid face. “It’s true,” he says. “Thought we’d lost you for a second there.”

“Wouldn’t leave Baby with your punk ass,” Dean replies, and it’s almost a perfect copy of what he’s usually like, snarky and flippant. Sam laces their fingers together where they’re still pressed against his stomach. He can feel Dean’s pulse. Their hearts are separated by only a few centimetres of skin and blood and bone and he knows it so well it’s practically an extension of himself. Sam and Dean. Dean and Sam.

Dean closes his eyes as Cas resumes his gentle stroking, easing the tension from his body. Sam slows his breathing to match his brother as they both drift into sleep.

 

 


End file.
